THOUGHTS FOR THE KIT-BAG 



THOUGHTS 
FOR THE KIT-BAG 



By 
ELIZABETH GRINNELL 



Foreword by Malcolm James MacLeod 



ASSOCIATION PRESS 

New York: 124 East 28th Street 
1918 



4? & 



Copyright, 1918, by 

The International Committee of 

Young Men's Christian Associations 



APR 12 !3;8 



©CI.A494544 
SW$ t 



FOREWORD 

The author of this little volume is known 
in California as an authority on birds, 
her books being used as textbooks in the 
schools of the state. Her lovely home in 
Pasadena is known as the "Birds' Retreat" 
and is a sort of Mecca for bird-lovers from 
everywhere. 

I have spent many a delightful after- 
noon with her, roaming over her beautiful 
grounds, as she talked on how many sorts 
of weed-seeds the linnets eat, and the 
phcebe's habit of "sitting all alone," and 
how the woodpeckers scatter their chips 
about the base of the tree they are work- 
ing in, and how the warbler makes believe 
he is wounded when the nest is approached, 
and how the mocking bird can take a 
butterfly on the wing, or a grasshopper on 
the jump. Ah me! 

"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed; 
How sweet their memory still !" 

And Mrs. Grinnell is not only an ornith- 
ologist; she is a many-sided naturalist and 
a voluminous writer along other lines. 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

Her first book was entitled "How John 
and I Brought Up the Child." Then she 
has written of "Gold-hunting in Alaska," 
and of her ten years' life among the In- 
dians, besides several other volumes. 
When I last saw her some eight years 
ago, her greatest passion was in finding 
homes for orphan children. 

I once had a rather amusing experience 
with Mrs. Grinnell, which it may be no 
violation of friendship to relate. She 
called to see me one morning and said: 

"I am going to have David Starr Jordan 
and some friends dine with me on Satur- 
day evening and I want you and your 
good wife to join us." 

I said: "Mrs. Grinnell, I'm very sorry, 
I have never gone out to a Saturday even- 
ing dinner in my life and I'm afraid I shall 
have to ask to be excused." 

"Oh, but," she answered, "you must 
come. You need not dress. Come just as 
you are, in your overalls, if that will make 
it easier; I will excuse you immediately 
after dinner. I want you to know Presi- 
dent Jordan — he's such a splendid fellow!" 

"But, my dear Mrs. Grinnell, it's Wed- 
nesday, and I haven't written one solitary 

vi 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

line of my Sunday's sermon yet, and, to 
tell you the truth, I'm beginning to feel a 
bit shaky. I would love to meet Dr. 
Jordan and to enjoy your gracious hospi- 
tality, but for the life of me I don't see 
how I can arrange it this time." 

But anyone who knows Mrs. Grinnell 
will understand that with her friends she 
"doesn't take No for an answer." And 
after some further skirmishing, she said, 
as she rose to go: 

"Now, dinner is at seven o'clock. I shall 
expect you." 

Finding my pleas of no avail, and evi- 
dently weakening somewhat under her 
commanding insistence, I said as she was 
passing out the door, thinking myself per- 
fectly safe in the suggestion: 

"Well, now, I'll tell you what I'll do. 
If you write a sermon for me for Sunday 
morning, we will be delighted to avail our- 
selves of the great pleasure of dining with 
you and Dr. Grinnell on Saturday even- 
ing." 

Quick as a report from a pistol, she re- 
turned : 

"It's a bargain. Good-by." And off she 
shot into the orange grove. 

vii 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

When I returned to my study and re- 
hearsed the incident to my wife, we both 
laughed over it and passed it off as a char- 
acteristic pleasantry. It was a clever way 
of excusing me and letting me down easy, 
we agreed, after seeing my homiletical em- 
barrassment. So for the time we thought 
nothing more about it. 

Thursday and Friday were beautiful 
days — days that only California can boast, 
but Saturday morning dawned in a down- 
pour. I have rarely seen such a deluge 
even in the wettest season of this sup- 
posedly rainless state. Bear in mind that 
California does everything in a big, gen- 
erous way. It has the biggest trees, and 
the biggest mountains, and the biggest fish, 
and the biggest ranches, and the greatest 
orchards, and the tallest flowers in our 
land. It has the largest telescope in the 
world. And when it gets down to real 
earnest business, it rains Mississippis and 
Amazons. Nowhere, it seems, are the 
drops so big, or so pelting, or so wet. 
Sometimes it takes Jupiter Pluvius a pow- 
erful long time making up his mind to 
start, but once his mind is made up, the 
old Californian knows it's time to go 

viii 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

closet-hunting for last year's rubbers and 
umbrellas and rain-coats. 

I spent the morning in my study, put- 
ting the finishing touches on my sermon, 
and rehearsing it to the accompaniment of 
the driving storm. What was my surprise 
when about noon a special messenger boy 
rang my bell and there was handed me a 
package, which, on opening, I found to be 
a carefully written sermon of twenty-two 
large foolscap pages, fresh from the type- 
writer, on Matt. 4: 1, "Then was Jesus led 
up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be 
tempted of the devil." 

I called my wife and we went into the 
library and read it together. It was strong 
and bright and logical and scriptural, and 
perhaps hyper-orthodox. It had its intro- 
duction, its headings, its conclusion. It 
was a straight-from-the-shoulder clean-cut 
challenge for the personality of His Satanic 
Majesty. 

"Well, dear," I ventured, as we finished 
the last page, "it's no joke, is it ?" 

"It certainly is not," she answered. "I 
guess we're in for the dinner." 

Six o'clock came, and the clouds were 
still tumbling down in reservoirs. The 

ix 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

night was dark, the wind was cold. The 
streets were real rivers, rushing down from 
the mountains. Oh, such a night! We 
took our rubber-coats and top-boots and a 
lantern, and plunged out into the black- 
ness. The distance was about a mile and 
a half, four blocks of which we had to 
tramp, or rather wade. It was a fine 
study in navigation. 

On arriving at the "Retreat" and hurry- 
ing through the shaded driveway, we re- 
marked how quiet and damp and dimly 
lighted the home appeared. Could it be a 
joke after all? So, stealing up on the porch 
and tiptoeing about, we peered through 
the window. There was no evidence of the 
big Stanford President or any guests in 
drenched attire drying themselves. We 
walked around to the rear. There was no 
odor of canvas-back duck or fatted calf. 
Nothing but an owl or some feathered 
watchman from his perch in the pepper 
tree saluted us, as much as to say, "What 
in the world are you doing out such a night 
as this?" Then once more we crept up on 
the porch for another peep through the 
lattice. But this time one of us had 
stumbled, and a voice from within rang 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

out into the storm, challenging the burglar 
and calling, "Who's there?" 

Many a laugh we had later over our 
dinner party. I have still the sermon filed 
away among my literary archives. I have 
not preached it as yet, but I have read it 
many times with profit and interest and 
delight. 

Mrs. Grinnell has written some charming 
stories. She has struck off from her bril- 
liant pen some poetry of a very high order. 
She is a sermonizer, I can vouch, of no mean 
art. She is a great Calvinistic theologian; 
and I think that those who read this little 
volume will concede that she is a profound 
religious psychologist. 

Malcolm James MacLeod. 



XI 



THOUGHTS FOR THE KIT-BAG 

It is a good thing to come face to face 
with a song bird whether alive or in a 
picture. 

I have persuaded this prince of singers 
to sit upon my hand, and here do I send 
his photograph, with my hand, to every 
soldier in every land. 

In his home land this thrasher bird is 
recognized as the Caruso of arboreal sing- 
ers. In the melody from his throat, before 
the shadows rise and dress themselves in 
the morning, is the combined harmony of 
gladness and triumph, surprise and peace. 

At first it is a warble of welcome, then a 
love-song as from a joy-breaking heart, 
then a clear note of victory as when the 
battle is past, and then a lullaby tender 
and low. And then he rests, caressing his 
own breast as if well pleased with himself. 
And yet no idle dandy is he, for he works 
for a living, and wears, not the dress suit 
of robin or oriole, but plain khaki uniform 
from head to foot. 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

The melody of the thrasher's song, pro- 
vided the heart's ear be alert, comforts 
and rebukes, chastens and uplifts, yes, and 
compensates. In my case, in the early 
summer of this year 191 7, it has shamed 
me, that I, "a soldier of the Cross," should 
not be more loyal than to complain. 

To rebel is better than to complain. If 
a person rebel he may be victor or take his 
punishment with a hard swallow, but to 
whine one's way through misery is to be 
a dog. 

Under the spell of the song bird I was 
ashamed. And this is why I am sending 
the bird and my hand and my thoughts to 
every soldier in every land. In his clear 
eye may you read the message you most 
sorely need. As you look long into that 
clear eye, the window of his soul, some 
voice within you or outside of you may 
articulate the message he so silently brings. 

Lying here on my cot, under the cypress 
trees for a hospital ward, surrounded with 
every comfort, but in the constant pain of 
a severe wound, I discovered myself pity- 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

ing myself; and the thrasher bird's song 
shamed me. 

Pitying oneself all the time soon leads 
one to be self-centered, peevish, covetous 
of too speedy restoration. Thus was I 
convinced that I, of all the world, was the 
super-sufferer. But I came to myself with 
long strides of resolve, while the bird sang 
from the apex of the cypress tree, my heart 
acting as interpreter in the gloaming. 
Clear came the song — 

"Self pity is a slow poison. 
Rise above it or the soul of you will 

dwindle to a skeleton. 
Rise above it. Rise above it." 

Then flew the bird to the tip of a blue 
gum tree a hundred feet away and caroled 
a love ditty. 

The suggestion of shame at my self- 
centered protest against my fate gave 
place to the resolve that warmed my 
heart, bidding me do something for others 
who suffer. The resolve was the fashion- 
ing of this little book, no bigger than a 
breast pocket, albeit I was unable to lift 
my head from my pillow. 

3 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

With the resolve came the conviction 
that loaned me a sense of certain achieve- 
ment, that one can reach out in the dark, 
as I am now doing for the pencil and pad, 
and scrawl a decipherable sentiment, to be 
interpreted by daylight, and huddled with 
others of its kind, to be packed at last like 
birdshot into a shell of a book. 

My message must be a single sentiment 
at a time, for pain and fatigue have a firm 
grip in spite of the resolve. But now as 
ever a resolve loyal and true will win. 

It is impossible under the circumstances 
to write in chapters, or do any consecutive 
work. A paragraph at a time, and only 
now and then, will make me feel the long 
summer is not wasted. Were it only for 
companionship to myself, I would make 
the effort. Effort is very good medicine. 

When I lifted the shotgun one day last 
winter and took aim at a wicked feline foe 
about to rob my thrasher's nest, I knew 
full well that not every little shot would 
hit the mark, but in all probability one or 
two would. And so, my soldier friends, 
may it be with my birdshot thoughts. 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

It doesn't take much of a genius to use 
a shotgun. 

Thoughts, like birds, sometimes stop to 
preen themselves, as it were; more often 
they fly swiftly in a whirr of wings. I 
catch the whirr of wings and imprison for 
you now and then a thought. I claim no 
absolute originality. There is none. 

Thoughts are, and were, and always 
have been, since man began to multiply 
and replenish the earth with rhetoric. 

There is no new thought in all the world, 
for we but catch the echo of the old ones, 
calling them our very own, since possibly 
we have never met them before. 

Let us see to it in advance of catching 
them, that the thoughts we would pursue 
are worthy, or give up the chase. 

I stood one day, long past it seems to 
me, but really little longer ago than yes- 
terday, in the path of a Great Terror. As 
it passed it smote me hip and thigh, leav- 
ing me in helpless agony. 

No time was afforded me to resist the 
attack, but thank God, the soul may with- 
stand resulting conditions and triumph 
over the flesh. 

5 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

The possibility of triumph over the flesh 
enthrones the mind as a sovereign — power- 
ful, sublime, like God himself. An ex- 
plosion of boiling oil in peaceful home 
pursuits or the shrapnel of the battle field 
may strike the unresisting flesh, while the 
soul, the real Person, rises to strike back 
blow upon blow at pain, and weakness, and 
despair. 

Always the Soul is the Victor. 

Matters that concern us are so arranged 
without our knowledge or consent that the 
flesh habitually takes the soul around with 
it wherever it goes, and so insures for itself 
a certain inside armor as it were, like a 
vest of steel under the coat of a soldier. 

True, the soul may be relieved of the 
flesh at any time without our will or con- 
sent, but Life will go on, if so be we have 
not of ourselves done violence to the soul. 

Confidence in the enduring qualities of 
the soul, like the sun at midday (which 
day would otherwise be night), lights the 
devious road we are traveling to Some- 
where — Somewhere being undefined, unlo- 
cated, but none the less certain according 

6 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

to our faith, our faith in that Somewhere 
being as reasonably assured as that to- 
morrow's sun will rise in the east. 

Thank God for thoughts that are born 
of that same reasonable assurance as to 
the Somewhere we are marching toward — 
thoughts, not idle musings unworthy of a 
soldier's mind, but thoughts that make 
music, or invent, or carve, or calculate, like 
the faithful tools our thoughts should be. 

Thoughts left at random may become 
pirates, or bandits, or mutineers. Trained 
thoughts are like soldiers, obedient, brave, 
loyal to the best Life. 

I know a man who all his life has 
missed the satisfaction of gathering luscious 
thoughts as one picks fruit from bush or 
tree; or, gathering a scant handful now and 
then, he lacked the art of preserving the 
harvest for future use before it spoiled, as 
housewives do make marmalade. 

God is the Great Will personified. The 
strength of a human life is gone if the will 
is gone. The will is the strength of any 
man, as the sap of a tree is its strength. 

7 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

When the sap has been drained by long 
practice from the maple, that grand maple 
is dead. It can be of no further use in 
the world but to serve as back logs to the 
chimney fire. We used to burn such back 
in Maine, with a regretful memory of the 
sugaring off that used to be. 

God's best gift to man is the will, God's 
Will being Himself. A man should cherish 
the power of his will as the miser treasures 
his hoard. 

The strength of a man's will increases 
in proportion to its use, whether for good 
or evil. 

A very strong will, made strong by use 
in the interests of evil, soon destroys the 
possessor of it. 

A very weak will persistently exercised 
grows high as heaven, and always toward 
heaven, heaven representing our conception 
of what is highest. 

I said "God's best gift to man is the 
will, God's Will being Himself." What 
then, can we destroy that part of God 
which He gave us to profit by? 

God gave Jesus Christ, that is Himself, 

8 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

to the world, to the whole world for that 
world to possess. 

It is written that by the hand of man 
Jesus Christ met death. But Jesus Christ 
is not dead. 

A man may crucify in himself what was 
intended for his salvation, but salvation is 
not dead. 

A man's will was intended for his salva- 
tion, but if a man do violence to that best 
gift, he crucifies it as far as he himself is 
affected. 

The Will of God may be changed, so far 
as the possessor of it is concerned, by a 
sort of spiritual chemistry into self-poison. 

And God breathed into man the breath 
of life from His own eternal Source. 

If a man hold his breath until he die, 
has he then destroyed any portion of the 
Source? He has indeed destroyed himself. 
The Source is forever, world without end. 

The Will of God is forever. That He 
wanted us to have and to hold that Will 
forever, he taught us in the prayer, "Thy 
Will be done." 

9 



T hought s for the Kit- B ag 

If a man reject the Will of God, cast it 
out of the house of his soul as it were, he 
has nothing left in the house but counter- 
feit. Always counterfeit is worthless, save 
as the means of convicting its owner of 
felony. But the felon conserves his coun- 
terfeit that he may pass it as genuine. 
Some men claim to be doing God's will 
when they are but counterfeiting. 

The value of anything must be great, to 
be worth so much trouble and danger to 
the counterfeiter. 

There are counterfeit Christians, and 
true Christians who never heard of God 
by that name. 

How can a man know that his will is 
God's will? God has given us the ability 
to know. It is our duty to know. To 
know is to be like God himself. 

A person has no excuse for saying "I do 
not know" in any vital point. 

We have reason to believe that a "still, 
small Voice" speaks to every soul. Some- 
times it is almost inarticulate, again a 
whisper, and again a clear insistent voice. 
There may be evil voices, but these are 

10 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

not The Voice, and it is given to every 
man to distinguish between the voices; 
else how can he be held accountable, as 
he most certainly is, for his acts, which 
grow from his thoughts? It is unexplain- 
abfe, but none the less incontrovertible, 
according to the best testimony we have. 

The First Man heard the Voice in the 
Garden and replied without hesitation. 
St. Paul, hearing the voice of Jesus for the 
first time, without visual proof, recognized 
it and listened. 

When Dr. Livingstone in darkest Africa 
attempted to tell a native wise woman 
about God, as we understand Him, the so- 
called savage replied, "O, I am so glad 
you know about this God. I have known 
him a long while." 

If one doesn't believe in the Voice, but 
would really like to hear or know it, one 
can ask that Voice to speak when all other 
voices are still, and see what answer he 
may have. "Before they call, I will an- 
swer; and while they are yet speaking, I 
will hear" is the Promise. 

Did any great commander, any great 

ii 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

apostle, any great statesman, any monarch 
even, ever say to the people, "While ye 
are yet speaking I will answer" ? 

Is it so much as said of these that they 
made such a promise? Not the closest 
adherent of any great leader has assumed 
so much and so great a thing of a master. 

This is one reason why I believe in God 
with all my might, God as we have been 
introduced to Him in a very infinitesimal 
way. 

In the soul of us all we see that there 
must be a Greater Commander of men 
than belongs to human society. Concep- 
tions of Him, as afforded us, are vastly 
different and beyond our conceptions of 
human personality, but this does not ab- 
rogate the fact. 

Not all obey the Voice. The interests 
of man's Church, and man's State, and 
man's financial affairs smother the Voice. 
It is a pretty tangled labyrinth, I admit, 
but God is able. Let us try to find Him. 

What shall a man do with a will that 
has gone wrong? That is a secret worth 
knowing. It is one of God's secrets. "His 

12 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

secrets are with men," the greatest book of 
reference says. 

Go straight and ask the friend of puzzled 
soldiers, the Y M C A comrade of the puz- 
zled soldier, who is sometimes seen with a 
checkerboard under one arm and the Book 
of Reference under the other. I believe he 
can tell you what to do with a will that 
has gone wrong. 

I have a suspicion that he will tell you 
there is no other way to relieve the situa- 
tion when a man's will has gone wrong but 
to get help from the outside of him. 

I have not read of any savage people in 
the world who are ashamed to be surprised 
at their prayers, and we are assured that 
savage folk everywhere do pray. It seems 
strange that some who are not savages are 
ashamed if caught at their prayers. 

I heard of a man who swore by a great 
oath, "There is no God." 

Why does any man swear by God? I 
suppose it is because there is none greater. 

By his very oath a man acknowledges 
God. 

Would a soldier of any country stand 

13 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

shamelessly by and hear without protest 
the name of his country's ruler slandered 
or maligned ? 

When I began these notes I resolved 
that the spirit of them should be humor- 
ous or philosophical and not at all reli- 
gious. 

As I lie here facing the blue sky, unable 
to fight or resent physically any possible 
indignity that might be offered, or even 
to help myself to a drink of water, I have 
naturally drifted away from humor and 
philosophy as such. 

It is hard to crack a joke when one is 
unable to go after a joke or to get away 
with one if it happened one's way. When 
a person has recently been or is now on 
the brink of something desperate, some ir- 
resistible crisis which opens upon new and 
untried life and conditions, one is serious 
naturally. 

Perhaps it is better so, since the soldiers 
to whom I am sending my little book must 
of necessity be one and all upon the brink 
of something desperately serious, whether 
living or dying. 

14 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

But note that I am not sad, though 
serious. No soldier of the Cross and no 
soldier of his country should be sad. Glad- 
ness itself may be serious. 

To be glad is to be good. Who ever 
heard of a professional villain being glad? 
He may laugh, but his laugh has no note 
of gladness, rather of irony. 

I laugh softly to myself in the darkest 
night at some new comfortable thought 
that visits me, as if on purpose to be a 
comrade to me. 

And perchance a sick or wounded soldier 
will laugh softly to himself when some 
comforting word of mine may reach him. 

Thoughts of ours are one another's 
friends, sitting beside us and holding hands 
and smoothing the brow of pain, or cheer- 
ing the spirit in weakness. Accept my 
thoughts, my soldier friend, as they come 
to me and I send them to you. 

It would seem that possibly the happy 
and healthy and unwounded are not likely 
to get any of my message. Bless them! 
When I shall have fought my way to a 

is 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

victorious peace with pain and sleepless 
suffering, my pen may be dipped in the 
ink of triumphant joy, and to the gladdest 
of the glad will I indite all the pent-up 
merriment which has been the portion of 
my lot hitherto. 

To be merry now is out of the question. 
Should one indulge in merriment at such 
a time, the wise might confidently conclude 
that surgical insanity had taken the throne. 
What one needs is strength, the resolve to 
win out, the determination to conquer. 
Thoughts of God give all these and plenty 
more. Therefore, my wounded friend, let 
us have thoughts of God. We will be 
merry when the time comes. 

After all, am I wrong? Can a person be 
merry under fire? 

It is twelve o'clock in the night. The 
stars shine. My pencil is feeling its way 
across the page, as you and I feel our way 
across life's page, each of us confident that 
something good will come out of it all in 
the morning. 

Did I write "in the morning"? Some- 
thing good is coming out of it now to me 

16 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

and I am glad to be alive. Are you glad 
to be alive? 

When a man's conscience is at ease, the 
citadel of his judgment is in danger of 
pillage. 

Yes, I am glad to be alive. 

If a person be not loyal to his own life, 
how can he be loyal to his commander or 
to his country? 

I am not important enough for a miracle. 
The conceited ask for miracles. Therefore 
I pray for patience to wait for natural 
recovery. 

Within ten feet or more of my cot is a 
colony of honey bees. They work day and 
night, when the night is not wet or cold. 
I hear them making gentle melody with 
their myriads of gauzy wings, and I can 
see them enter and leave the hive. Always 
the entrance to a bee hive is as clean as 
the wax inside. 

Sometimes a bee heavily laden drops at 
the doorway, too weary to go further. She 

17 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

will probably never rise again, for, once 
losing heart in impossible work, a bee dies. 
If she dies upon the threshold, her com- 
panions lift her and drop her outside. She 
may lie on the ground and she may fall 
into a crevasse. 

In like manner have I seen the native 
American Indians deposit their dead in 
crevasses or upon the top of the ground. 
If in a crevasse the dead are safe from 
marauding wolves, or if on the ground the 
body is previously wrapped in stout dried 
hides. 

The more I watch these bees the better 
I think of what we call inferior beings. I 
think them superior in many ways. If a 
honey bee sails away from home for sweets 
she returns not without them, provided 
there be any sweets within four or five 
miles of her starting place. A few flights 
as long as this enfeeble her wings so that 
her life's work is finished in three or four 
months. 

But what of the length of any life, if so 
be that a honey bee or a human shall have 
done life's work or any part of it with 
good will and efficiency ? Better be a honey 

18 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

worker one short summer than an idle 
human being for seventy years. 

I think of God as a Person. I seem 
nearer to Him when I want to call Him. 
The theologians call Him a great "Being" 
when they do not call him "God." I 
think of Him as "Person," as a Father or 
Brother of our own race, who sees and 
hears and looks after us long after we have 
turned away from Him, as if He thought 
we might turn back. He is glad when we 
turn back. 

I do not trouble myself about the form 
of that Person. I would rather know more 
of His influence and of His spirit. The 
spirit of any person is more important than 
the form. 

Of course many things are purposely left 
for us to conjecture or imagine. To com- 
prehend the exact nature of such a Person 
as The God must be I think would crush a 
human mind. 

So I find comfort and strength in imag- 
inings which I am confident are often 
lighted from above, like rooms with shaded 
lamps in the ceiling. 

19 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

I do not trouble to understand about the 
form of the wind which lifts a ship or 
house, or coaxes a lily to bow its head or a 
Canterbury bell to ring without sound. 
The wind to me is Power; God is Person 
and Power. 

If you feel God-forsaken and miserable, 
go straight and have mercy upon some- 
body. By having a stock of mercy and 
sympathy for others, a man joins hands 
with God in the great work He has to do. 
God cannot get along with the work with- 
out our help. 

How do you know that God is not more 
miserable than you can possibly be under 
any circumstances? How do you know 
but God needs somebody to comfort Him ? 
Let us have mercy on God and give Him 
as little trouble as possible. 

It is in the great heart of God to take 
so much trouble on our behalf that He 
would follow us down into shadows and 
depths and even death to help us. It is a 
good thing to have sympathy with God in 
these trying times. 

20 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

These thoughts may be new to you, but 
God is able to make of them a sort of 
spiritual life insurance when life's war is 
over. 

There are office-seekers in politics, the 
more's the pity, according to the object in 
view by the seeker. There is one office 
the most ambitious may attain. Are you, 
yourself, a worthy administrator or mayor 
in your little town of Years ? 

It is strange that nobody seems to re- 
member or to know anything about Mother 
Time. 

Father Time was not gallant when he 
had his picture taken so many times mow- 
ing down the daisies with a scythe. Did 
Mother Time plant the daisies? 

What about a man's will being seem- 
ingly as strong as a lion to do the wrong 
thing ? 

The Great Reference Book says some- 
thing about the Saviour of men being a 
Lion. Let the Lion meet the lion in your 
soul and conquer. 

A man's soul is his battle ground. Shall 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

this battle ground be covered one day with 
the white skeletons of failure and despair, 
or shall lilies of endurance nourished by 
heart's blood bear testimony to triumph ? 

After all that may be said in disfavor 
of a hermit, no one can doubt that all 
persons should be absolutely alone occa- 
sionally. I suppose that sometimes and 
under certain conditions a soldier longs to 
be alone. A friend of mine in France 
today writes me that "on leave" he in- 
variably goes off by himself, into the 
country if possible. 

A person may have many things and 
yet his whole life be as bare as a skeleton. 

Some people eat hash habitually, from a 
mental viewpoint — left-overs from such 
things as should have gone to the dogs. 

Many things are good and wholesome in 
themselves, but when served with bad ac- 
companiments are poor aliment for the soul. 
The "movies" are an illustration. Pictures 
of rare worth, of adventure and achieve- 
ment, and love, and detective work, would 
one and all invigorate, were it not for a 

22 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

scrap of bad meat, an evil suggestion, or 
a malicious slander of truth, tossed into 
the banquet by accident or on purpose. 

If one but have the discrimination which 
is helpful, he may be able to reject the 
suggestion or the slander and be nourished 
by the better things. 

The smell of food when one is hungry 
excites the salivary glands of the mouth; 
so does the sympathetic suggestion of grief 
excite the tear ducts of the eyes. 

If you have lost sight of God you would 
better turn back; you will find Him just 
where you left Him. 

Someone has said that a brother of- 
fended is harder to be won than a strong 
city. Better get offended with oneself oc- 
casionally than with a brother. 

Some folk wear calico thoughts on their 
mental backs as they wear calico shirts on 
their bodies, that shrink and fade in the 
wearing and washing. He is a favorite of 
good fortune and hard work who chooses 
shimmering silk brocade thoughts that will 

23 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

"stand alone." By our thoughts we asso- 
ciate with the nobility of every age and 
land, or we may crawl in the mire and 
black ooze with things that disgust, slugs 
and other slimy forms that revel in filth. 

There is some excuse for these, for they 
continue in their native element; but man 
belongs to the air and the sky and the 
forests that are clean and wholesome. He 
should abide there. 

The difference between a man's wit and 
the scythe he cuts the hay with is this. 
He whets the scythe to make it sharp and 
must keep whetting. Scythes grow dull 
with the using. Wit grows keen with the 
using. 

God gave us the instinct of fear for self- 
protection. Worry is not fear. Worry is 
an impediment to travel which we have 
picked up of ourselves. It does not be- 
long in our kit. 

Every act of a well-balanced man is 
honor to God, love of country, and devo- 
tion to duty. 

Recreation is not forgetfulness of honor, 
24 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

or love, or duty. Recreation is a stabilizer 
of honor and love and duty. 

What is it for a man to be lost ? He has 
simply forgotten the way he was going or 
lost his compass as to direction. When 
one feels instinctively the lost feeling com- 
ing on, one should call to some other 
traveler just ahead of him, around the 
corner, or behind the thicket. A person 
need never stay lost, for there are always 
other travelers in sight or hearing. This 
is in regard to the mental or spiritual 
status of a man. 

God Himself is never out of hearing, 
even in the din of battle or the rush and 
sounds of a cantonment in the making; 
no, nor on the "long hike" when there has 
come no word as to the destination. 

God is our destination. Let us hang 
that up on the wall of the soul. 

The "Better Land" of our childhood — 
"shall we not seek it and toil no more?" 
We call it "The Better Land" because it 
is farthest back in memory. 

I am watching a garden toad beside my 

25 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

camp in the potatoes. He burrows with 
his back feet until he makes a hole for half 
his body and then he works the soil out 
ahead of him until he is out of sight. He 
never goes down his burrow after it is 
made, head first. He would face the 
enemy. 

Too lazy to dig himself a burrow, or 
hole, the toad one day appropriated that 
of my pet ground squirrel, who had run- 
ways all over the place. Squirrel came to 
the door and espied Toad, saying with 
chattering teeth at the intruder, "Get 
out." Toad backed down an inch and 
dared Squirrel to "come on." Squirrel 
looked perplexed for half a minute and 
then ran swiftly away. Toad came nearer 
the surface with a satisfied expression of 
countenance and blinked in the light of 
the early sunshine. Suddenly Toad got a 
boost from behind that sent him ten feet 
away, a pretty surprised would-be appro- 
priator of other folks' labors. Squirrel 
followed, with a look of "There now" 
plainly written upon her face. She had 
remembered an opening somewhere at the 
other end of this tunnel. 

26 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

Just watching the maneuvers of these 
two small creatures helped me to bear my 
pain for the whole day. So does heaven 
send us alleviation from unlooked-for 
sources. 

In all nature there is craving for light, 
and more light. Seed germs look out of 
windows for light; so do lily bulbs long for 
light, and sunflowers turn their faces to the 
east to greet the sunrise of a new morning. 

Is not death the door by which we may 
come to the Great Light which all our life 
we are craving? 

My thrasher and other birds were not 
always birds. Neither shall we be always 
in our present form. Somewhere in the 
dim and distant past a reptile or a family 
of reptiles bade good-by to the saurian 
tribes and became a bird or birds. Other 
reptilia remained as they were, and are — 
no ambition; no rising out of the dust 
and slime to scale the vault of heaven by 
flight, and to gladden the heart of God 
and the heart of us by song. 

I saw a sparrow just now, singing to a 

27 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

long green lizard, both resting on a fallen 
log. 

"Sing, bird, sing !" I cried. "You crawled 
out of the window of opportunity and be- 
came a great singer to cheer the heart of 
all the world. God is the Great Oppor- 
tunity for all living things." 

I am a "living thing" and I will go to 
the window. 

It is of no use to grow sour. A little 
sugar is essential to the nourishment of 
the body. Sweets in some form are essen- 
tial to the soul of us. If necessary we must 
borrow sweet from those who have it to 
spare. But, we must pay it back. 

It is not necessary to be silly to be 
sweet. Sweet thoughts are what makes a 
person redolent of healthful influences. 
The love of beauty in flowers and birds 
and forests and fields gives a flavor of 
sweets to the possessor. 

The love of sweet music or color or 
fragrance sweetens a life otherwise un- 
wholesome. 

The love of a sweet girl or a faithful 
wife or a loyal comrade neutralizes the 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

bitter acid of an otherwise unwholesome 
soul. 

A single snowflake melts and passes 
away at once, disappearing into the Noth- 
ing". A mass of snowflakes may be moulded 
into beautiful forms or beaten into a solid 
wall. 

One single desire, or effort, alone and 
unaccompanied disappears without trace. 
A mass of desires and efforts moulds beau- 
tiful forms or unscalable walls. 

Obedience to the right is a result of 
voluntary choice. Coercion is for the 
body, and a very good thing. 

God gave terror to alleviate extreme 
physical suffering, as physicians do give 
anesthetics. When terror looms fierce and 
sudden, the body forgets itself. Terror 
cannot become habitual like fear, for pro- 
longed terror would be a murderer of body 
and mind. 

A person of himself cannot summon 
terror, but he may invite fear of the 
proper things to fear, and be better 
equipped for it. 

29 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

If God, as Lincoln said, loved the com- 
mon people best because he made so many 
of them, then I would add God must have 
loved the common little beings very much, 
He made so many of them — birds and 
bees and creeping things. He made my 
thrasher bird, that I might by its song 
lift me beyond my pain. 

Let the birds lift you, my comrade. 

For a long while I had noticed a little 
grey, harmless house spider on a cash 
register at my grocer's store. I asked the 
grocer "Why?" He replied, "That little 
spider has a mission. When I feel like 
cursing a bad debtor the spider diverts 



me. 



My grocer has learned a secret. 

Until one has suffered, the most essen- 
tial of life's lessons has not been learned. 
To "skip" suffering is to skip one of the 
most indispensable grades in school. 

One may skip a grade, but the reckoning 
comes at the close of school. The parch- 
ment one has worked for may be withheld 
by the Master. I do not know how it may 
be in the simile, but "Make it up" is a hard 

30 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

word on graduation day. We must take 
the grades as they come or ultimately lose 
heart and the best opportunities. 

The problem of suffering is no more to 
be overlooked than that of compound in- 
terest. 

My nurse just surprised me with my 
pencil and pad. "You shouldn't do it," 
she said. "It is too much effort. Give me 
the pad." "No," I replied, "I would not 
deserve recovery if I made no effort to 
forget." She returned the pad and pencil. 
"You are right," she said. "Go on." 

But often I find the same thought or 
sentiment recurring to me which I wrote 
yesterday or last week. I am repeating. 
If my reader does not find it worth while 
to read it twice, he may read it three 
times. 

Just at daybreak on the morning of the 
ninth week. No one is astir save my 
garden spider, who loves dim dawn better 
than bright light. I can see her against 
the silver of the sky at her aerial occupa- 
tion, she, like the true patriot that she is, 

31 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

hastening to the call of duty, as she un- 
derstands it. 

She is climbing an invisible line ha A .d 
over hand, and now she drops. My im- 
pulse is to arrest her fall, for she relin- 
quished her seeming hold many feet above 
the ground. I move a trifle for a cross 
light on my vision, and behold, she is 
spinning an infinitesimal line as she falls. 
She does not fall, she softly descends, find- 
ing a foothold on the apex of a slender 
twig. She now ascends her own original 
rope and returns to the high point where 
she began. 

This round grey spider is my daily 
dawn companion. She inspires me. It is 
good of God to have thought of creating 
spiders for such a purpose. It was by her 
manifest instinct as illustrated that the 
familiar term has come to us concerning 
any person in mortal peril, "His life hangs 
by a thread." 

Even so she has within herself the means 
of arresting her fall. The life line is of her 
own making and by her own effort she ar- 
rests her doom. So does the Creator im- 
part wonderful secrets to spiders. 

32 



T hought s for the Kit-B ag 

Again, at daybreak. A moth has flown 
against the well-adjusted web of my spider. 
The net was spread in the dark, but in the 
open and plain view of the moths who also 
carouse by night, night being broad day 
to moths and spiders. 

The graceful moth should have avoided 
the net. But other moths were also abroad 
dancing upon polished floors that never 
existed. They are in mid-air, these in- 
visible waxed floors; not high, moths do 
not seek the higher altitudes, nor do 
spiders. 

The carousal is on. There is music; 
I know it by the rhythm of gauzy wings, 
but my gross ear cannot hear it. The 
spider waits. This is not her first ex- 
perience with moths at dawn. But this 
moth is having its initiation into the 
mazes of danger. He cannot escape, 
though he puts forth marvelous efforts. 
He should have had his wit earlier! 

The aerial dance goes on to the har- 
mony of the silent stringed instruments of 
the wind. 

With my long pointed stick, with which 
I also toast marshmallows in the fireplace 
ten feet away from my cot, I tear that 

33 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

spider's web all to pieces, annihilate it. 
The spider retreats behind a barricade of 
cypress twigs. 

Next morning at dawn. My spider 
friend has woven a new web in place of 
the old. It was finished while I dozed, 
grateful for a short unconscious interrup- 
tion of my pain. 

Moths are carousing in the dim light, 
as at yesterday's dawn. Some of these 
also are victims of the spider's scheme. 
This time I will not tear the web. These 
moths have seen comrades one by one 
caught and destroyed and they should 
have provided themselves with forethought. 

The dance goes on and the sun rises, 
signal to the world of moths to postpone 
further carousals. 

Spiders make no secret of spreading 
their nets for the unwary. It's "up to" 
the moths to keep out of them. There is 
no more familiar and entertaining com- 
panion than a garden spider. As for the 
moths, I never see them do anything but 
dance in mid-air and tangle their wings 
in spiders' webs. 

34 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

An hour later. My nurse is peeping 
from the window of her room quietly to 
see if I am ready for company and break- 
fast. I smile, but make no reply. God 
has sent me company, and refreshment of 
thought. 

That fireplace of mine is a godsend. I 
made it of cobble stones and mortar with 
my own hands when I was well and hearty 
of spirits. I am glad I did it. Now that 
I am helpless I watch the fagots burn and 
waste to ashes, or toast my bread sticks 
with a ten foot "sucker" from the base of 
a peach tree. 

If I hadn't thought of that fireplace 
when I was well, I should now have been 
dependent upon the efforts of the kitchen 
stove, which is out of my zone of sight. 

If I had not, when I was well, laid the 
cobble stones of thought into a sort of 
fireplace in my mind, I should now have 
been without the resources of self-enter- 
tainment. The business of self-entertain- 
ment is profitable "in the long run." 

At midnight I woke, within me a feeling 
of perfect serenity, though my wound was 

35 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

asserting its rights in pressing diction. It 
often speaks, as you, my wounded soldier 
friend will realize in your own case. 

As I woke I "heard" a thought. It was 
this, the exact form of which I had not 
before heard. I pass it on. I may live 
indefinitely, as may you, but never shall 
I forget the message: 

"At thought of the near approach of 
death I feel a Support which I know is 
God." 

It needs no theological commentator to 
divulge its significance. My faith is ra- 
diant. Can you catch the glow of it? 

Now I am in lighter vein, still serious, 
however, a day or two after the last 
paragraph. 

Humor sometimes saves the day. A 
small boy in our little city fell in the school 
playground and broke both legs, and one 
arm. On the operating table he whim- 
pered, as who would not? But the little 
fellow had resources, saved up within his 
small soul in advance of the hour of need. 
No wolf of despair was at his door. When 
the good work was nearly finished, the boy 
looked up in his surgeon's face and said 

36 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

quaveringly, yet with a faint smile of 
humor, "Say, Doc, wish I'd broke the 
other arm — then I wouldn't have to wash 
my face and hands every time Mother 
calls me in to supper. It's so trying, you 
know, on a feller to have to wash up so 
ofteh." 

So does the memory of what was at the 
time a really serious matter abide to cheer 
us in later hours. The memory of just 
soap and water struck the crazy bone of 
that little fellow at the opportune moment 
of his life. 

Thoughts are rulers of the body. The 
body should be a holy shrine fit for the 
dwelling place of royalty. 

What some people need is less of Things 
and a good deal of actual poverty. Pov- 
erty originates, and makes over, and tends 
to make the recipient thankful. 

Someone has said, "I am an old man 
and have seen many troubles, none of 
which ever happened." So may a soldier 
see many battles and experience many a 
death, none of which he will ever meet. 

37 



Thoughts for the Kit- Bag 

The grace of God can keep a person 
from being disagreeable as well as from 
being a criminal. 

My memory is hard of hearing some- 
times and so I catch only the tail of an 
idea, but hold fast to it. 

Some people's minds are always out at 
the elbows, run-down as it were. They 
need new thinking apparel, as a fellow 
needs new shirts and shoes. Thoughts are 
the clothing of the mind, regal or very 
shabby. 

My friend who called to see me has just 
gone, saying on leaving, "How fascinating 
must be the repose of inanimate things 
after the fight; even the face of death must 
seem beautiful in the absolute repose of 
death." He didn't stop to think of the 
effect which that last word might have 
upon my mind when I am not able to 
lift myself. 

And yet, thinking it over, it shouldn't 
make me sad. It is only the coward or the 
remorseful soul that fears death. The 
coward should brace himself, and the re- 

38 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

morseful soul should make amends, and 
then he will be glad of death. 

I am not a coward; endurance assures 
me of that. As for remorse, I settled with 
that long ago. It is a good thing to settle 
with remorse before disaster overtakes one. 

Balzac says, "I envy God, who can read 
the undercurrents of the heart." 

Stewart Edward White says, "The 
more tired out the native African is, the 
louder he sings." 

Are you temporarily blind ? Remember 
the old trick of tying a handkerchief tight 
around your eyes in the game of hide and 
seek? Fancy yourself blind; Fancy is so 
kind. You fancied you were blind then, 
in the game, and you couldn't possibly 
open your lids. Try it now with the ban- 
dage tight. "Try to find her." "She" is 
dodging here and there in your memory. 
Memory is so kind and true. Let us be 
thankful for memory. 

No man can be permanently blind. Take 
heart! Philosophy and stoical endurance 

39 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

may help a fellow, but faith is the shoulder 
to lean on. God, whose other name is 
Jesus, has promised sight to the blind, the 
temporarily blind. He is coming with the 
new eyes. Wait just a little longer until 
your turn comes. He has so many to look 
after, but He overlooks not a single one. 
I think He will remember the blind first. 

My beloved thrashers have returned, 
after being absent a week. So does many 
a joy we thought had vanished return to 
gladden us again. 

Three days after. The thrashers built 
a nest above my fireplace on a drooping 
bough. When it was almost finished they 
changed their mind. They are now busily 
at work taking it all apart and carrying 
every stick and straw to a point farther 
away from the occasional smoke. Last 
year they reared a nestful of birdlings 
right in the smoke. 

What a joy these birds are to me! 

In appearance they are similar. I dis- 
tinguish the male only by his song and by 
his dominance over his mate. Now he is 
rushing her at the nest building, following 

40 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

her, seeming to drive her, as if any woman 
housebuilder wouldn't make haste as fast 
as she could! I think she should turn and 
drive him. 

Thrasher men are cowards, if but their 
mates stand up for their rights. 

I realize that one cannot help being 
"afraid" sometimes. To be afraid is not 
weakness; I realize this also. Fear without 
mental hysteria is the advance scout of 
strength. Fear means instant prepara- 
tion. 

To fear Fear is to be ready. "I am not 
afraid" is as often the slogan of the cow- 
ard as of the hero. 

Balzac says, "The mainspring of hap- 
piness is within ourselves." 

Happiness or "calm" may become a 
fixed habit, useful and influential — useful, 
in tiding oneself over trials, or influential 
to one's fellows. There is a family like- 
ness between calm and happiness. Calm 
is of peace; happiness is of activity. 

"Never had much use for the Y M C A" 
when you were at home and life was full of 

4i 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

everything and everybody else? The 
Young Men's Christian Association doesn't 
lay that up against you! You used to 
think they were "queer" ? They are queer, 
I admit. 

The synonyms for queer are "uncom- 
mon, extraordinary, unique." Is not the 
Y M C A all these and a hundred times 
multiplied? There comes one of their 
number. How invigorating is the sight of 
him, upright, tender, every inch a man! 
He reads you an extract from the Book 
that is under his arm. It is neither stale, 
nor bitter, nor sour, nor suggestive of 
hints that irritate and censure. 

What this unique man reads to you in 
the meager light is as full of "meat" as 
the chestnuts you used to gather back 
home or the Christmas cocoanut. The 
"meat" is bracing to a convalescent, or 
even to one possibly in "the shadow" 
just before the eternal dawn. 

Now perhaps he arranges your pillow, 
if you have a pillow. If not, he and you 
can make-believe. And now maybe he 
proposes a "game." Or he will crank the 
victrola. O, these welcome heaven-sent 

42 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

victrolas! You see, victrolas are not in a 
soldier's kit. Neither are the other musi- 
cal instruments, the organ or the piano or 
the violin; they belong in the kit of your 
Y M C A comrades. 

I see your comrade walking away to 
some other soldier boy and your eye fol- 
lows him. He is whistling "Yankee Doo- 
dle" or "Tipperary" or some other of the 
soldier's "hymns"; perhaps it is "Abide 
with Me/' or "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," 
or "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Your 
heart follows him with something like a 
prayer, though you may not recognize it 
as a prayer, but God does. "Queer sort 
of a fellow," the Y M C A man? 

O, the weariness of weakness when a 
person is convalescing! Thank God for 
the border land of sleep, where the exile 
meets the friends of other days. 

A man is like a nation, when the crisis is 
passed. The convalescence of a man and 
that of a nation is God's order. It takes 
time and patience, and much philosophy 
with a good deal of "pep" to meet the 
situation. You see I know a little of what 

43 



Thoughts fo r the K it - B ag 

it is. Thank God that I do know a little, 
else I couldn't think so often of my soldier 
friends. 

You may have already come to know 
that the pain of repair is harder to bear 
than the initial disaster. I have come to 
know that, and to wince under the opera- 
tion, and schemes, and blows, and gnawing 
labors of the nerves and wounded blood 
vessels and bruised or torn tissues, accom- 
modating and limiting themselves to an 
utterly new condition of affairs. 

In spite of the suffering endured it is 
interesting to "feel," if one cannot see, the 
fight going on between the loyal cells of 
the flesh and marauding enemies from out- 
side, striving to arrest and even to kill the 
patriotic invisible soldiers of the body. 

Look at it that way, soldier boy. 

Sometime in the fifteenth century Lau- 
rence Sterne is said to have caught the 
whirr of a thought, preserved it, wrapped 
it in poesy, and tossed it over the years to 
us. 

"God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb," he wrote. 

44 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

The assurance that God cares for lambs 
has been a satisfaction to many a per- 
plexed and perishing one. But I do not 
think the poet was as well acquainted with 
God as he might have been. Had he be- 
thought himself to give some credit to the 
efforts of the lamb in seeking shelter and 
relief from its shorn condition, he would 
have but given the lamb its due, and God 
the credit of acting impartially toward 
lambs of whatever sort. 

Laurence Sterne had more in mind the 
storm than the lamb, the supposed miracle 
than the object of pity. For common folk 
like you and me to place our faith in the 
probable interference of miracles in our 
behalf is to insure to ourselves disappoint- 
ment and possible loss of faith in the end. 

The true meaning of the idea from the 
view-point of one well acquainted with 
God would seem to transpose the text to 
read God tempers the shorn lamb to the 
wind. This would place some responsi- 
bility on the lamb. One lamb may stand 
still and shiver, while another equally 
"shorn" will take a bee line for the fold. 

For all we know, storms may be the 

45 



Thoughts fo r the K it- B ag 

servants of God sent forth since the be- 
ginning of time to their duty. 

Should we ask God to interfere with His 
orders and change His mind, so to speak, 
on account of a solitary lamb like you or 
me who hasn't the intelligence to run for 
cover ? 

May you and I, shorn lambs of the flock, 
help God to keep us in good condition of 
mind and body, that we may grow more 
wool, so to speak, before the next wind 
howls our way; get back the strength to 
endure, and keep warm to every good 
thing. We may grow even better protec- 
tion than we had in the soul of us before 
we were "shorn" or tempted or stricken. 

We have a perfect right to lay claim to 
the God of winds and lambs, accepting the 
miracle of Himself, and so believe in the 
Great Miracle, with no need of the mirac- 
ulous interference of nature's laws. 

He who prays that the north wind may 
stop blowing because he is cold is a cow- 
ard, deserving neither roof nor covering for 
his shorn back. 

God naturally expects more of men than 
of lambs, and we ought to respect God 

46 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

enough to see to it that He shall not be 
disappointed in us. 

We ought to see more universal respect 
for God, though some there are who think 
of Him or worship Him as an ideal. Do 
we not have respect for an ideal? High 
ideals are profitable. 

God is an Ideal, but ideals are not God. 

A man may seek a realization of his 
ideals all his life and not find it, or, finding 
it, miss the opportunity, for lack of years, 
of going on to the finish. 

"Go on to the finish" is the clamor of 
high thoughts. Therefore, some do see the 
emergency of death that is the halting 
place, in advance, and grasp the ever- 
lasting Ideal, that they may "go on to the 
finish" of high ideals. For God alone is 
declared to be "the author and finisher" of 
what He promises or undertakes to do. 

God is the Great Ideal. 

It is just like God to think of tempering 
a shorn lamb to the wind. That same 
wind, in the interests of the whole flock, 
ought not to be tempered. A good strong 
wind right out of the north may be as 

47 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

necessary as good pasture. A cold wind 
helps to harden the flock, and to strew 
plant seeds for next year's necessities. 

Some men confuse destiny with the God 
of destiny. Destiny is the servant and not 
the master. God thought about destiny, 
and so destiny is necessary. God thought 
about men, to join hands with Him in 
ruling the results of destiny. 

God, not destiny, is the master of men 
if men so will. Destiny is the natural re- 
sult of God's laws. We have no right to 
ask God to interrupt His laws, which He 
has thought out in the silences of His own 
eternity. 

Destiny may operate in the explosion 
of boiling oil when the victim of it has 
been careless, or in the aim of the shrapnel 
when a man has paused in the path of 
shrapnel, but here destiny is done and God 
takes a hand. When God takes a hand it 
is time to pray. 

Who ever said a prayer to destiny? 

To say a prayer to destiny would be like 
breathing upon the face of a glacier to 
warm its heart. 

48 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B ag 

Whom has destiny comforted in the 
hour of death? Whom has destiny lifted 
from the "mire and the clay," at the prayer 
of a man, and set upon a rock, speaking in 
eternal cadence, "I, even I, am thy God"? 

In the heyday of health and prosperity 
a man in the exuberance of his little soul 
may exclaim, "There is no God. All is 
destiny. Let simple folk believe in God!" 
But let that same man face death at the 
point of an enemy's bayonet or on the 
verge of a mighty chasm, and he will be 
very likely to cry, "Save me, O God." 
And ten to one God will save him. 

There may be a God after all! Some 
say there is none because they have never 
seen Him; neither have they seen the 
wind nor the electric current. 

God is such a strange Person, always 
surprising the sinner with His generosity, 
and the theological saint with a difference 
of opinion. 

Self-esteem is a virtue, provided it 
does not breed egoism. If a man esteem 
not himself, how can others hold him in 

49 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

estimation? Self-esteem is the twin of 
self-respect. 

There are times when a man longs to 
be a hermit, to live all by himself in a 
bark hut and eat rabbits and wild garlic, 
to lie around in the brush all day doing 
nothing, excepting possibly to think 
poetry. 

It is rumored that God made the orig- 
inal man a hermit, but that he soon re- 
pented Himself, for reasons, we suppose, 
perfectly obvious to Himself. 

Has anybody observed a recluse who is 
real wholesome to look at? Usually he is 
absolutely "dirty." Those who are in the 
business of turning men right about face 
from being nothing to being something 
tell us that the first step in the proceeding 
is to make them "wash up" and look in 
the mirror, the mirror being an excellent 
device to aid in reforming a man. 

A professional recluse in the mountains 
was once presented with a looking-glass 
for a Christmas gift. The glance of a sec- 
ond was sufficient to cause this hermit to 
dash the gift to the rocks. 

50 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B ag 

If it be winter time and one is on a 
march, let him pick up a small stone and 
put it in his pocket. At the first oppor- 
tunity heat it real hot and wrap it in paper. 
It will retain its heat many hours and is a 
very capable bedfellow, especially if there 
be a crowd about the only fire in camp. A 
hot rock, the bigger the better, is a soul 
saver. So many rocks just the size of a 
fellow's pocket lying about, inviting men 
to be comfortable! 

A person should covet humor as he 
would covet a promised inheritance. The 
man who inherits a vein of humor from 
his ancestors has sufficient means to carry 
him comfortably through life. 

Even in pain or other discomforts a 
man may lay hold on humor if he have 
any about him. Without pain a man 
would be dead before he knew it. Try 
out a little humor on the pain. Beat it! 
Make believe it "doesn't hurt." 

If you have to cry, why cry! Some of 
the world's greatest heroes have cried in 
their time, and weren't ashamed of it. 
But don't give in when the pain stabs. 

5i 



Thoughts for the Kit - Bag 

Tears make little rivulets in the mind as 
do raindrops in the garden, draining off 
afterwards, leaving a richer heart and a 
better garden for the shower. 

Cry hard when you cannot help it, but 
do not whine. A dog that howls is more 
endurable than a dog that whines. 

It may take a battle or two and a score 
of wounds to open a man's eyes upon God. 
Then will come the angel of revelation to 
show him that God was in the trenches 
or in the hospital or on the open field and 
breathing on his wounds, while as yet he 
couldn't see God for the mist that was 
in his eyes. Indifference is only mist. 
Ignorance is only mist. God is clear 
Light. 

See that you sing in the dark days, as 
the Southern darkies sang in the old slave 
days to get "de misery" out of their 
whipped backs. Make up a song as you 
go along or as you sit in the shackles, 
crude and droll like the songs of the 
darkies — to be sung long afterward in 
church and hall and battlefield in a 
chorus of jubilee. 

52 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

When comrades are dying, think of 
them as getting out of prison. Let the 
old prison crumble, it will but set the 
prisoner free. There is always a squad of 
heavenly hosts waiting for a fellow to get 
out of his prison, that they may conduct 
him to the place of his wildest imagination. 
"Eye hath not seen nor ear heard," but O, 
the wealth of imagination offered to a man 
in the cup of God's eternal goodness ! 

Imagination is a holy cordial; drink it! 

"O, so dirty," are you ? No clean linen, 
and no clean skin? I suppose St. John on 
the Isle of Patmos, prisoner that he was, 
felt the need of a bath and a shave more 
than anything else in the world, unless it 
were clean linen. That is why in his 
Revelation he has left us visions of "clean 
linen pure and white." A neglected pris- 
oner may catch a glimpse of visions to stir 
a world centuries after him. 

Thirsty, are you? So was One on Cal- 
vary. And yet from those same parched 
lips there came the message, "If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 
Did He thirst that He might assuage our 

53 



T hought s for -t he Kit -Bag 

thirst ? Ask the Y M C A brother-man to 
explain it. 

I suppose that if you come home to us 
you will say that you suffered more from 
thirst after being wounded than from the 
wounds. I know this, that while the "fir- 
ing line" was taking my breath away I 
cried incessantly for water. Thinking of 
this universal cry for water when a person 
is in the peril of pain, as if nothing but 
water could save, the Lord himself, being 
the only one able to save, cried to all the 
world, "Whosoever will, let him take the 
water of life freely." Freely! 

There seems to be just one thing that 
God is able to forget, and that is a man's 
sins, under certain strange conditions. 
Let us be like God in one particular, for- 
get the other man's sins against us, on 
purpose. 

Guard against mosquitoes; do not let 
them bite you. They have bitten some- 
body else first. Look sharp for attacking 
parties that have bitten others first, very 
much to the chagrin and misery of those 
other fellows. 

54 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

We have heard of distant tribes of men 
who are said to carry about with thern 
wherever they go a little prayer rug, con- 
veniently strapped upon their back or on 
the earners back. This comfortable me- 
mento acts as a reminder to both body 
and spirit. The knees naturally bend at 
sight of the reminder and an otherwise re- 
luctant spirit is compelled into service. 

A little shrine in a man's soul is a sort of 
prayer rug, soft and inviting for the knees 
of his heart. If you haven't any prayer 
rug along with you, ask the Y M C A man 
to help you out. These strange men have 
a wonderful faculty of supplying necessary 
comforts. 

No nightgown? No pajamas? Our 
forebears slept without these luxuries and 
any fellow can get used to it if he has to, 
in the interests of a good and common 
cause. 

It is sometimes the "having to" that 
puts the "grit" in a man. How few of us 
would do the really disagreeable duties if 
we didn't "have to." 

Even in the face of "no pajamas" one 
can laugh. A good hearty laugh will see 

55 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

to it that a man sleeps more soundly than 
he would in pajamas without the laugh. 

A great many respectable people have 
been in jail. It is well to recall this fact 
when the guard has turned alike his back 
and the key to one's cell. 

If the dead do sometimes haunt their 
old whereabouts, one may be sure of good 
company when he finds himself in prison 
for no crime. It is hard, though, after all 
that can be said in favor of good company. 
You had imagined you had hard times be- 
fore? So I think imagined Paul and Silas, 
loyal and true soldiers, imprisoned long ago 
by a relentless enemy. 

Paul and Silas were their simple names 
as we know them. That they did hold, 
and have since held, a higher rank than 
most army officers attain, cannot be 
doubted. They were soldiers of the Cross, 
and are commanding today, by word of 
mouth, a larger company, if we consider 
the "innumerable company" St. John saw 
in his vision, than any army commander 
at the present time. 

These soldiers of the Cross were not 

56 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

men to be found without a prayer rug in 
their kit, a little shrine in the soul of them; 
and they immediately prayed. And for 
whom did they pray, these men who had 
an intimate acquaintance with our Lord; 
who, according to His promise, had every 
reason to believe, as you and I have rea- 
son to believe, that He was in the prison 
with them? Knowing the character of 
them as well as we do, we have reason to 
believe they were praying for those who 
should come after them, who in every 
land might be longing for freedom. 

And then, after the prayer, immediately 
they began to sing. A note of triumph in 
advance of the victory! A psalm of holy 
glee that not upon their inmost souls had 
the jailer locked the cell door! O, cell 
doors are strong! But stronger yet is the 
winning force of God. 

One of the first things I will do when I 
find heaven will be to look up Paul and 
Silas and beg them to sing once again that 
song that reached the ear of an angel 
somewhere and brought him straight into 
the prison. A song from the lips of men 
in prison, a song to move the heart of an 

57 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

angel, though I suppose and believe that 
it was the Lord Himself who opened the 
prison doors! 

Will an angel open your prison door? 
I think not. God gave us this bit of 
prison history as a sort of divine assurance 
that a prisoner's cell may be a sanctuary. 
But keep watch for the Angel! It is pos- 
sible you may mistake an angel for a 
Y M C A man. 

No man, of his own deliberate intent, 
will betray the best interests of his body. 
A man's body may be scarred and yet be 
glorious. It depends upon whether the 
scars are self-inflicted or the result of 
honorable combat. 

It is good for one's body to salute one's 
mind, as if the mind were the command- 
ing officer, as indeed it is. 

Show no mercy to insolent thoughts. 

Insolence, even in a man's mind, should 
not be tolerated. See to it that all your 
valiant senses are genuinely loyal citizens 
of the soul, worthy of respect and pro- 
motion. 

58 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

Meet possible ridicule of loyalty to 
honor with the bayonet charge of cour- 
age. 

Repulse rude insinuation that lurks 
under cover of secrecy. Open the soul to 
daylight. It is from under cover that 
some of the soul's enemies charge. 

Do you remember telling me of your 
habit of holding debates with yourself 
upon important questions without a sound? 
A man is never subject to melancholy who 
is able to debate intelligently with himself, 
rising above the temptation to regret or 
despair. One may get a clearer view of 
any situation in communion with himself 
than when words darken the sky. 

Midnight! Everyone asleep but me. 
Do not pity me. The pain is sharp, but 
sharper still is my determination to get 
this message to you. 

It is written of the righteous, "Ye are 
the salt of the earth." It sometimes seems 
to me, lying here in the night (it is dark 
while I am writing now), that I am prin- 
cipally salt, I shed so many briny tears. 

59 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

Not that I am in the least "righteous" — 
far from it! 

Do you sometimes cry big salt tears 
with the pain and weakness from sheer 
helplessness to do anything else? I sus- 
pect you do, though you wouldn't have 
anybody know it for anything, because you 
are a man. Well, it may become one's 
legitimate business to shed tears. It is 
written of a certain truly great man, quot- 
ing his own words, "My tears have been 
my meat day and night." Pretty hard 
row for a man to hoe, though we do not 
know exactly where the pain was. 

Have you not noticed a recuperative re- 
action following the shedding of tears, that 
tones up the mental and physical forces, 
like a bitter tonic doctors sometimes pre- 
scribe ? 

Better to cry and have done with it than 
to grow irrevocably sullen. 

I have concluded that mental pain can- 
not equal physical pain, though mentalists 
declare to the contrary. So-called mental 
pain is not pain; it is distress. Mental dis- 
tress may not invariably affect the body, 
especially if the body is exercised to the 

60 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B ag 

tiring of the muscles. But continued and 
extreme physical pain does affect the 
mind if the mind does not resist. 

Remorse, resentment, hurt feelings, 
homesickness or disappointment, not to 
mention "affairs of the heart," are dis i 
tressing; an acute attack may almost kill 
a person, provided he do not resist. 
Usually one can walk it off, or take to his 
heels and run away from it. 

Physical pain that has pitched its un- 
welcome tent in that wound of yours, and 
mine, is harder to deal with; but of one 
thing I am certain — in the face of all diffi- 
culties the mind can make a bold stagger 
in attempts to "walk it off." 

Fancy is the gift of God. Though you 
may become blind, Fancy may sit upon the 
throne of lost vision and bid you "Look." 

Perhaps your sight may be soon re- 
stored, and perhaps not; but God's gift 
of fancy may join hands with you and 
your comrade Memory, and lead you into 
realms never before dreamed of. You may 
call it "dreaming" if you will, but dreams 
are real individuals when they come to be 
constant companions. 

61 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

Constantly to repine is to die by slow 
degrees without a principle to die for. It 
is preferable to get angry. Anger grows 
immediately ashamed of itself, while com- 
plaint justifies its grumbling on the grounds 
of self-pity. Self-pity is poor fodder, 
neither grain nor hay nor silage. Cut it 
out. 

Do not think about tomorrow. You are 
blind just for today. Fancy that your boy- 
hood days are come again and you are 
playing blind man all over the farm, and 
house, and school grounds. 

How seldom you stubbed your toes! Do 
not let your mind bump against this new 
condition, rough though it is and full of 
obstacles. Keep a level head and give 
Fancy the bit; but see to it that you pull 
her in before she turns the corner. 

In your next interview with Fancy, 
make her understand that you are the 
master, not she. Even Fancy must be 
guided or she will land you in the ditch. 

Thoughts of the soldier boys at the 
front or in training camp have helped me 
bear my pain. 

62 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B ag 

The command is to all of us, whether 
absorbed in home duties or in the in- 
evitable fatigue of the training, or in the 
rough of the front — "Endure hardness as 
good soldiers." We may engrave this com- 
mand in enduring emblems, each upon his 
own shield. 

Time cannot erase such a sentiment 
written upon personal experience and 
character. 

Do you feel that you are literally a 
"complete wreck," ready to go home, or 
to the permanent hospital for indefinite 
and imperfect repair? 

When a beautiful and substantial build- 
ing has been supposedly destroyed by 
earthquake and fire, the wreckage com- 
pany comes to save what remains for 
other uses. There is always a residue that 
does not perish, twisted iron, bent pipes, 
precious metal of every description, charred 
pillars, broken bricks from tottering chim- 
neys, even cement and plaster having their 
uses. 

God saves a wreck of a man because 
even what is left of him is useful in a 
world where nothing is wasted. 

63 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

I sometimes think it comes pretty near 
being a good thing for me to lie here so 
long. It give* plenty of time for memory 
to visit me. Memory has feet that scram- 
ble into every nook and corner, and little 
sharp eyes which nothing in our past 
evades, and sharp ears keen for the sounds 
we thought were dead. 

My nurse is God's hands, His face, His 
strength to me. A surgeon is God's power 
manifest in a human form. Watch him as 
he bends above you. Feel sure of him, as 
you do feel sure of God. 

The supports of God are tangible; noth- 
ing mystic about His preparations and re- 
sulting forces. 

No need have you and I to make a 
mystic of God, when we have been once 
down into the dark drear desert of pain 
and climbed back again to the green edge 
of things where forget-me-nots and hearts- 
ease are growing. 

Why do we call our Great Commander 
and Heavenly Father "God" sometimes, 
and "Jesus" sometimes ? It is the mood or 

64 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

the need we are in that decides upon the 
name we call Him by. 

Do we not call each other "husband" or 
"wife" or "Claude" or "Mary"? Do not 
we call loudly for "Bill" or "Brother," 
either of the two meaning the same per- 
son? Do we not call the Judge "Your 
Honor" or "The Bench"? Did not our 
parents call us "Son," or "Boy," or "Mis- 
chief"? 

At mess time? No home "grace," no 
family greetings, no refined expeditionary 
force from plate to lips; no napkin, no 
conversation to facilitate digestion of con- 
trary opinions, and no diversion of thought 
from the bare sensuous satisfaction of eat- 
ing? You would prefer taking your rations 
to the shade of the old barn or down by 
the sociable little brook of boyhood. You 
would like to eat with the cows and the 
tree rats, with old Bowser for extra. 

Especially you do not admire your elbow 
companion, either of them perhaps; it 
often seems incredibly dull? 

Suppose you try the experiment of say- 
ing over and over to yourself, "He is a 
nice fellow; really a very fine fellow, all 

65 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

but his table manners." You have be- 
lieved worse fibs than that many a time. 
I have tried this method myself and found 
it profitable and successful, especially when 
the idea came to me that my ill-mannered 
messmate was really dying of homesick- 
ness, or remorse, or even possible con- 
tempt of himself. 

There was a certain Great Man, of 
whose conduct and practices nothing could 
be said in criticism save this charge, "He 
eateth with publicans and sinners/' How 
remarkable that this Man, altogether 
lovely and of good report, should of his 
own volition sit at "mess" with the most 
ill-behaved men of his time. 

And how strange that the historians of 
Jesus should have chronicled so insignifi- 
cant a circumstance! 

Nothing was insignificant in that Life. 
Was it not for your sake that He ate with 
publicans and sinners, instead of ban- 
queting with kings and governors of His 
time, at whose table He properly and often 
most welcomely belonged? Imagine Him 
at "mess" with you, my soldier friend, as 

66 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

He really is, unseen and unheard, sitting 
between yourself and your disagreeable 
elbow companion. 

Beware of renegade thoughts! There 
may be whole packs of them eager to de- 
vour you piecemeal and altogether, like 
wolves. Get away from all these hungry 
wolves as God knows you can get away 
if you stay with Him. If these wild crea- 
tures have already torn you do not de- 
spair, for they cannot make your soul 
bleed to death if you fight to the finish. 

What is a soldier for if it isn't to fight 
to the finish! 

Let go of your misery! Try not to 
think so much about it. One's own misery 
never can be quite equal to the misery of 
some other fellow. It is because our own 
misery is so near to us that we keep think- 
ing about it all the time. If we should get 
as near to some other person as we are to 
our own miseries we might feel as if we 
ourselves were pretty well off in com- 
parison. 

A soldier has wonderful opportunities 
to be of use to his fellows, of use or of dis- 

67 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

advantage. In citizen life, comrades are 
mostly far apart in families and in occu- 
pations, with little time for fellowship. 
But in military life a man has opportuni- 
ties thrust upon him. Surely each soldier, 
brave and strong man that he now is, will 
be summoned to give an accounting to 
the Great Commander for all these won- 
derful opportunities, whether improved or 
wasted. 

At first thought one might think it 
"poor form" or very cowardly if a man, 
for the first time, should call out to God 
for help in trouble of some sort, when in 
all his life he may not have given God a 
single loyal or even respectful thought. 
One may sometime have even ridiculed 
the "very idea of God helping anybody 
out of trouble." One may even have 
blasphemed, being in company with the 
profane. 

Distress is just the proper time and 
opportunity for God to get acquainted 
with miserable men. Somehow one does 
not so much need Him in glad days, not 
having yet learned that our Lord is the 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

soul of gladness itself. But now this very- 
day of a big trouble is the time to call 
Him by name. Has He not left a message 
especially for you, "Call upon me in the 
day of trouble," "While they are yet 
speaking, I will hear"? 

It is just as though God, by that prom- 
ise of His, was so near a fellow all the 
while that it took Him no time at all to 
answer. If a man in your place were to 
"call" upon the President, or a command- 
ing officer, it might take long days, if ever, 
to gain an audience. But with God it is 
so different. 

It seems to be God's especial business 
to be listening all the time. O, the sub- 
limity of a Commander like Him! 

Thank heaven, God is often the Last 
Resort. 

It is just like God to hear the cry of a 
man right through the prison walls of an 
alien land or even through the door of a 
guardhouse in a military camp, in spite of 
any guard. God has good hearing, and if 
it is comfort you are wishing for, comfort 
you will get. 

69 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

Maybe you do not need comfort or 
even want comfort if it were offered you. 
You want release, and a chance to "get it 
back" on somebody. 

God can do many other things for a fel- 
low than comfort him. God can be severe 
as well as merciful, when a man needs 
severity. Do not conclude that God is 
not a dignified and stern Judge. 

God is the terrible Master of men when 
men need that kind of a God. God is able 
to summon a man at any moment to ap- 
pear before Him for an accounting. This 
phase of His character should be consid- 
ered when a man is in jail for good reasons, 
and now is the time and place to "make 
good" with God. 

Eventually one may have more re- 
spect for God if one comes to know Him 
as the Soul of Justice. This comprehen- 
sion of Him may lead you to "call upon 
Him" in regard to some things in your 
past life that you cannot seem to get rid 
of, even though you may be in prison and 
in great distress to be free once more. In 
this frame of mind, this sort of mental 

70 



Thoughts f o r the K i t - B a g 

understanding of yourself, you will find 
God meeting you more than halfway. 

I have heard a rumor to the effect that 
the thought of God under certain condi- 
tions makes a fellow "mad." It is a good 
thing for a man to get mad about God. 
It proves that man really does believe in 
God. Any man well brought up is likely 
to make an apology when he has been 
angry with another man without just 
cause. 

If a man understands the essentials in 
his dealings with other men, apologizing 
for instance, why should he not be a gen- 
tleman in his attitude toward God and 
make apologies when such are due? I am 
sure God would appreciate and understand. 
God is a wonderful Person. 

If you do not feel quite equal to the 
situation, considering some things you 
know about yourself, you might write an 
apology to that Person you have wronged 
by word or deed and ask your Y M C A 
friend to deliver it to Him. I believe your 
friend would be glad to act as your am- 
bassador and aid you in securing an in- 
terview. 

7i 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

Once you have been in the conscious 
presence of the Greatest Man in heaven 
or earth you will feel a certain glorifying 
of common life and things, an uplift into 
a divine atmosphere, different and remote 
from the ordinary. 

Homesick? This obscure disease baffles 
description. Only one who has suffered 
can comprehend. Some declare it is not a 
disease at all, but an uncanny mental 
malady subject to environment, and the 
temporary indisposition of the entire or- 
ganization. 

Homesickness must be a disease, for its 
other name, suited to the aristocracy of 
the patient, is nostalgia, as described in 
the medical works. 

This name is significant. Should a ple- 
beian like you and me have an attack it is 
simply homesickness. If a person of rank 
in the straight line of aristocracy be at- 
tacked, or rather affected, his ailment is 
nostalgia. 

If a person of monetary value, with a 
slight attack, sends for the doctor, he is 
apportioned various drugs to be adminis- 
tered "three times daily" with the attend- 

72 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

ance of two trained nurses. There is 
usually an operation indicated. 

In our case, yours and mine, we keep 
our troubles to ourselves if possible, lest 
the finger of scorn be pointed toward us 
with the whisper of "Cry baby," in place 
of an operation. 

If there be a particular time in personal 
history when a person needs sympathy, it 
is when he is homesick. Try as he will, he 
cannot "throw it off" without supreme ef- 
fort, and then it is doubtful. All the world 
within and without is gray with the gloom 
of extreme loneliness. Night and day are 
one, without the glow of sunset or the ra- 
diance of sunrise. The best of jokes ap- 
peals not to him and food does not satisfy. 
There is a lump in his throat as if an acorn 
in the shell had been arrested, able neither 
to come back nor go on. 

There are rumors of antidotes. I am 
not familiar with any one of the many as 
being effective save one. Perhaps your 
Y M C A friend knows of something. But, 
in event of your being at your wits' end 
for friends, which is usually the case, try 
the Man of Sorrows. 

73 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

Who ever heard of a disciple of Socrates 
or of Plato or Browning calling upon Socra- 
tes, or Plato, or Browning for help in time 
of trouble ? Did they leave behind, when 
they went on ahead of the rest, the word 
of promise, "I will be with him in trouble" ? 

Does one in extreme difficulties call upon 
the name of Napoleon, or Washington, or 
Lincoln, great though they were, on ac- 
count of their dying assurance, "Lo, I am 
with you alway"? 

In and by the Name of Jesus there is, 
when a man calls Him by Name, a personal 
Presence unmistakable, even though the 
person calling Him by Name has not met 
Him before. 

Fortitude and Courage are essential to 
personal success. By his fortitude a man 
is able to endure the ills or accidents that 
come to him and for which he himself is 
not responsible. Fortitude is a staff to 
lean upon, a sort of Alpine stock by which 
a man keeps himself to the trail up the 
summit. 

Courage is the element of a man's char- 
acter or resolve that enables him to face 
what he knows that he, himself, is respon- 

74 



T hought s for the Kit-Bag 

sible for, and to "go to it !" Courage is the 
implement with which a man hews his 
difficult and painful way to the summit of 
triumph, or it may be death, through ob- 
stacles which he might avoid were he a 
coward. Courage and Fortitude are twins. 

What have you in your kit, that par- 
ticular kit which a man carries always 
within him, always within him? Look it 
over occasionally and find if anything has 
been picked up on the march which does 
not belong there and thus has made it 
heavier or out of proportion. Have you 
slipped into it inadvertently, a little hate, 
or malice, or discontent, or self-pity, which 
cannot help displacing the essentials ? 

Perhaps you have on the sly added too 
many memories of the wrong sort, mem- 
ories that make you blue, or tempt you to 
neglect the bugle calls to duties, military 
or personal and private. 

A soldier's kit which he carries, slung to 
his heart's shoulder, holds all his posessions 
worth mentioning. 

It is human, and of course it is divine, 
for a man to take a glimpse at another's 

75 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

kit. Are your comrades' inside shoulders 
growing stooped and weak from carrying 
possible "extras" which a soldier has no 
business to carry? 

Unspoken rebellion against circum- 
stances or orders over which he has no 
control is almost as bad as outspoken re- 
volt, if a man has a mind to analyze him- 
self. Sullen obedience is marked upon a 
man's face. He is sure to be registered as 
a "suspect" by his superiors. 

"God loveth a hilarious giver" (Robert 
J. Burdette). If God loveth a cheerful 
giver, surely a military officer loveth a 
hearty soldier. 

To be a traitor to God, as God's will and 
commands are understood, is to invite 
death penalty. A man may live along for 
some time parrying blows with his con- 
science, though sure to fall at last and be 
left as dead. 

It is a terrible thing to have a dead 
conscience. 

If the soul blushes not at memories, one 
need not fear the telltale tint of the cheek. 

76 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

The happy memory of a kiss upon the 
forehead of the girl he loves has saved 
many a soldier from the burning blush of 
present horror and future stigma. 

Make a submarine chaser of your re- 
solves, for the principal dangers to char- 
acter are out of sight, where the devils of 
the deep sea fight with sharks over the 
shattered remains of a sunken man. 

There are deep-sea sharks of despair 
that chase the foundering ship to devour 
what they can find. A fellow's real ship, 
his war ship, cannot be seriously attacked 
while he is chasing the enemy. A man's 
ship is his soul, his real life. 

You have heard it rumored that if a 
man "gone wrong" but "turn over a new 
leaf" he will be "as good as before." Yes, 
"as good as before," "as white as snow," 
just between himself and God, for God 
hath spoken it. 

Thank God for God! 

But never can a man, once dipped into 
the indelible dye of vice, be as white, to 
himself and his fellowkind, to his mother 

77 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

and his sweetheart, who one and all may 
accept him "as he is." However, it is 
better to turn over the new leaf, and the 
sooner the better. One would rather be 
"almost white" than dreadfully black. 

It is good to repent before Remorse 
overtakes a man. Remorse is a relentless 
foe one may wish he had never met. Re- 
morse aims at the heart of life and is sure 
of its target. 

What shall a man do with Remorse 
when he is attacked? Repentance wields 
the only bayonet that can down Remorse. 
Repentance grapples with Remorse and 
crushes the life out. Repentance is of God. 

Remorse is of that Other whose name I 
have not used. That Other is God's op- 
ponent. If a soldier be fighting the battles 
of God he will find Repentance. If he is 
fighting the battles of His opponent, in 
ever so fascinating a uniform, both him- 
self and the uniform he loves will perish of 
their own decree. 

See that you come by your scars hon- 
estly, not in brawls with rioters and high- 
waymen. 

78 



T hought s for the Kit-Bag 

It is written of Lycurgus, King of Sparta, 
that when he sent his armies abroad he 
exhorted the soldiers to respect the women 
of the lands they traversed or subdued. 

Joining hands with that great comman- 
der of the dark ages, your own General 
Pershing, upon welcoming the American 
troops to France, is reported to have ex- 
horted them, "Pledge honor to the women 
of France wherever you may be located 

and through whatsoever villages you may 

ft 
pass. 

But what of the women who have not 
been taught respect for themselves? Re- 
gret for the woman who has missed her 
lesson might lead a truly brave man to 
teach her. 

Why should the memory of a little white 
uniform bring tears to the eyes of a soldier 
when he lies down in his lonely corner at 
night? The little uniform had feet into 
whose soft warm folds the boy tucked his 
cold toes. Above the little white night- 
gown that uniformed the sleepy child bent 
the face of the mother with her goodnight 
kiss. The big soldier without any nightie, 
weary and worn and sick at heart, may be 

79 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

sadly comforted by the memory of "just a 
nightgown." 

Dionysius the tyrant, being at table 
with Spartan soldiers, criticised the menu 
as being insipid. 

The cook replied, "I do not wonder at 
it, for the seasoning is wanting." 

"What seasoning?" questioned the ty- 
rant. 

"Running, sweating, fatigue, hunger, 
and thirst; these are the ingredients with 
which we season our food." 

When the Spartans' aim had routed and 
broken the enemy's forces, they then pur- 
sued them no farther than was necessary 
to make themselves sure of the victory; 
after which they retired "thinking it neither 
glorious nor worthy of Greece to cut in 
pieces and destroy an enemy that yielded 
and fled." 

But why refer to ancient history when 
we have our own Theodore Roosevelt, who 
said in an address to the American soldiers, 
"Love mercy; treat prisoners well; succor 
the wounded; treat every woman as if she 
were your sister; care for the little children 

80 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

and be tender with the old and helpless. 
Walk humbly; you will do so if you study 
the teachings of our Saviour. May the 
God of justice and mercy have you in His 
keeping." 

Tears are not for the battle-field. Tears 
are for times of peace, or for the time be- 
tween battles when a man may have an 
attack of nostalgia. Neither are tears for 
the man on shipboard suffering from a 
sudden attack of mat de mer — if so be he is 
a person of quality, or if just any person at 
all the disease is plain seasickness. No, a 
person doesn't cry when he is really sea- 
sick. He is too miserable for tears. It is 
now that one does not care if he perish. 

Very likely, however, a man may have 
trouble with his eyes just as the ship 
leaves the wharf, and until it is out of 
sight of land. As an excuse for "eye 
trouble" a man waves his handkerchief in- 
cessantly as if bidding adieu to the folks on 
shore. In reality the handkerchief is neces- 
sarily applied very swiftly and cautiously 
to the brows, or passed down the face if it 
be a warm day. 

Si 



T 'h ought s for the Kit - B ag 

It takes a long while to dry out a hand- 
kerchief on the outward voyage. 

The same man whose eyes were affected 
on the outgoing ship may have a similar 
attack on the one homeward bound. Thus 
do tears express for the average of us 
either joy or pain. The difference is only 
this — when a person is weeping for sorrow 
he conceals his tears, but when for joy the 
man of tears cares not if the whole world 
see him. 

I knew a soldier who actually left one 
little tear on the forehead of his lady-love 
at parting with her at the wharf. And I 
knew another who as truly lost two tears 
upon the forehead of his sweetheart at the 
end of a return trip. So it is well for the 
majority of us to be provided with hand- 
kerchiefs. 

God must have had one of His sublime 
ideas when he thought favorably of pro- 
viding homesickness for the human fam- 
ily. Were it not for homesickness, we 
should probably have no home and native 
land. Unconsciously I believe the most of 
us are sometimes homesick for parts un- 
known to mortal eyes, but for whose ac- 

82 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

■ - ■ m— ■ ■iiiiinwinwiiiiM ii i 

tuality the Lord himself pledged his word. 
Good and gracious Lord! 

It is difficult to determine which is more 
dangerous or unpleasant to meet single- 
handed and alone — homesickness or sea- 
sickness, mat de mer or nostalgia. If a 
man be attacked by both at the same 
time, it must be admitted by all observers 
to be pretty rough. 

It seems cruel to laugh at a person when 
he is seasick, especially if the man who 
laughs is just over an attack of his own. 
To laugh at the misfortune of others is 
usually the expression of a feeble mind; 
but in case of the prostrate victim of sea- 
sickness and under certain conditions to 
laugh seems justifiable. Should the attack 
be prolonged, it is quite likely temporarily 
to cure the patient of self-conceit. The 
exact time and place for a man to show 
himself off, who is normally addicted to 
self-conceit, is on shipboard just out of 
sight of land, on his first voyage, with a 
genuine attack of seasickness. 

Now here is a peculiar situation. Let a 
squad of men, for lack of something better 

83 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

to do, discuss their various experiences with 
seasickness. Ten to one there will be a 
general attack, subtle, sly, but sure. Such 
is the influence of the mind over its com- 
panion-piece, the body, especially when the 
object of contemplation be in the region of 
the solar plexus, which the ancients assure 
us is the throne of the mind. 

"What is it to be saved, Mother ?" asked 
a boy of ten. The mother replied, "My 
boy, you know the little red card in front 
of Willie's house, and how you and the 
other children do not pass that way be- 
cause Willie has diphtheria?" "Yes, 
Mother." 

"And the little red sign is to save all 
of you from taking diphtheria." "Yes, 
Mother." 

"And you remember when you backed 
off from the pier into the water and a 
fisherman came in his boat and picked 
you up?" "Yes, Mother." 

"He saved you, didn't he, my boy?" 
"Yes, Mother." 

"And when you were playing with the 
matches you smuggled from the cellar, 
Father punished you?" "Yes, Mother." 

84 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

"And that was Father's way of saving 
you from being hurt, wasn't it?" "Yes, 
Mother." 

There are famous entomologists who 
would trade their professional chairs with 
a soldier, almost any day (when a battle 
is not in progress), just for the oppor- 
tunities the soldier has for studying in- 
sects and plants. A soldier having a few 
otherwise idle minutes on his hands may 
collect specimens of insect and plant life, 
send to any university for identification, 
and so improve himself and become a 
member of the world of nature workers. 

What have you found in minute life 
deep down in the trenches you have been 
digging? A man I know, hard at work 
digging a sewer main in his city, came upon 
a nest of the wonderful little honey ants 
which he secured in the top of his hat. 
Afterwards he sent them to me, telling me 
that while his back was aching with the 
stooping and scooping he experienced ab- 
solution from his suffering, at the instant 
he discovered the little insects with their 
transparent globules of honey iridescent 

85 



Thoughts fo r the Kit-Rag 

in the sunlight. These little honey people 
live out of sight in their own original 
trenches, and must be given moist earth 
in confinement. 

There are hundreds of interesting insect 
folk like the so-called thousand-legged 
worms, and snails, and beetles, who do 
not resent being called "bugs" by those 
unacquainted with them. And there are 
the butterflies which often fly by their 
own air-planes from one location to an- 
other, a mile of them in orderly march. 

If a soldier have but the wit about him 
to gather to his mind loads of common 
knowledge as a bee gathers pollen on her 
thigh, he will have time for profitable 
musings, as well as the satisfaction of 
adding his mite to the general storehouse 
of information. 

I am in love with my nurse! I am won- 
dering if she returns my love or if she can 
understand the depth of mine. I would 
like to ask her age, but can only guess it. 
After all, age counts for nothing if the 
heart be young. 

Perhaps I would better not mention love 
86 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

to my nurse, but wait for developments. 
It is said that a patient always is in love 
with the nurse. I do not doubt it or won- 
der at it. 

My feelings toward my nurse are in- 
describable. She is like God in a little 
human way. I am grateful to her for her 
patience, and firmness, and gentle author- 
ity, though I believe she could be the 
reverse of gentleness should I obtrude be- 
tween her and her duty. That is the 
trouble in making love to a nurse — one 
runs into danger of obtruding between the 
nurse and her life-work. 

We have much in common. Every nurse 
has much in common with a patient. 
Sometimes she must be the very soul of 
her patient, steadfast of purpose, assuring, 
directing even in trifles in your weakness, 
but retreating at the advance of health, 
that her patient may learn all over again 
the lessons of self-reliance. 

My nurse calls me her "victim." She 
shall be my "victim" when once again I 
am able to outrun and outwit mine ad- 
versaries. 

One day when my boy comrade joined 

87 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

the ranks, he came to say "Good-by." A 
great, splendid, true, and faithful fellow he 
is; have you met him? 

At his good-by he asked me for a word, 
a single sentiment or promise that should 
go with him and abide with him. I re- 
sponded with my two hands upon his two 
shoulders and his hands upon my shoulders, 
"God is faithful, who will not suffer you to 
be tempted above that ye are able; but 
will with the temptation also make a way 
to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 

I once wrote Red Cloud, Sioux Chief, 
whom I had known and esteemed, to send 
me a simple memento from his buffalo- 
skin tepee on the banks of the Washita. 
The Government had presented him with 
an American flag as reward for loyalty and 
erected a staff for it, from which I had 
seen it wave gloriously. But I had no 
thought of the flag; I thought he might 
send me a spray from the bullberry bush 
or a strip from the deer-skin door that 
swung catercornered from the entrance of 
his lodge. 

When the memento came it was a tiny 
strip cut from the depending corner of the 

88 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

flag and a sliver from the weather-worn 
staff. The noble old Chief wrote his reply 
by the interpreter, "I can think of nothing 
I would rather send you, my friend, than 
these fragments. They are proof that I 
remain loyal to the Government according 
to my promise." 

There is no such thing in the affairs of 
life as a blank in a normal memory. Write 
your memory brim full of what is worth 
while. We write, and then we read; we 
cannot erase. 

It is a good thing to "make believe" in 
a good cause. Stick to the make-believe 
doctrine. Make believe you are not tired 
to death in the long monotonous training; 
make believe you are not thirsty when the 
other fellow is crying for water; make be- 
lieve you are just hiking up the home 
mountain when the long march seems 
never to end; make believe the pack on 
your shoulders is just little Jimmie and 
you are taking him pickaback to school. 

It is a calamity to lose one's head; hav- 
ing lost it once it is easier to lose it again. 

89 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

To lose one's balance is to forfeit control 
of one's self. A man's head is the throne 
of his thought; see that it be not abdicated. 

Fear at the right time and place is proof 
of a man's courage. Fear at the wrong 
time and place is proof of a man's weak- 
ness. 

It is a glory to have a great commander 
who is worthy of honor. An officer must 
have been himself loyal and true and obe- 
dient and deferent. Honor him heart and 
soul, my soldier friend, for there is yet a 
greater Commander whom he himself must 
honor. 

Memory may be a cruel master or the 
best and dearest of bosom friends. Un- 
consciously to ourselves we are sketching 
the background of years to come. Let us 
dip our brushes in the indelible tints of 
truth and honor, that Memory may not 
deride us. 

I have learned one thing essential to 
recovery, and that is "to eat well and 
often." Food builds new tissue and also 

90 



T hought s for the Kit-Bag 

keeps up the courage. Food also strength- 
ens the will to recover, which is half the 
battle. 

Did the hand of a young girl ever rest 
in yours with a delicacy of touch that 
made you dream happy dreams of life- 
long purity of purpose? May the mem- 
ory of that gentle hand protect you in an 
alien land or amid the vicissitudes of 
cantonment life and help you to build 
true to your dreams. She too had dreams. 

Impatience at delay; to wait; to bide 
one's time; to long for achievement of 
coveted conditions; to remain when one 
yearns for "the front" — these are circum- 
stances that demand a resolute spirit. 

To wait for the slow pace of convalescence 
when one longs to be himself again; to bide 
the tedious preparation of the body for the 
return of strength — eleven weeks, and still 
must I wait; but the thrasher bird sings for 
me and some invisible joy of patience will 
sing in the heart of a soldier in a stranger's 
hospital. Sometimes the song is but a low 
twitter, almost an inaudible murmur, as 

9i 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

if expression were inarticulate but impel- 
ling. 

The weary heart, rising above its weak- 
ness of speech, must articulate cheer to the 
weary body; for the body can maintain or 
improve its strength only by the help of 
the heart. Take heart then, soldier friend 
of mine ! 

Here comes a comrade with the checker 
board! Thank heaven for a checker board. 
Let us play checkers! 

My thrasher bird above me in the tree- 
top thought of something he wanted to say 
in the middle of the night and sang it out 
to the moonlight and me; just as I, too, am 
thinking of what I would say to you, my 
soldier, here in the cheery moonlight. 

Sing, thrasher bird, sing; sing, soul of 
me, for the glory of daybreak is close at 
hand. 

Sing, my soldier, sing for the glory of 
a tomorrow. 

I sent you pencils and pads by the 
Y M C A. Write a letter to somebody, if 
only to God, as did the little orphan girl, 
and see what comes of it. 

92 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

See how near we come to camping to- 
gether, the soldier at the far-away front 
or in the nearer cantonment, myself lying 
on my cot writing to you, perhaps with 
the selfsame thought and perhaps with no 
less of a wound than yourself, and the 
thrasher bird in the tree top. Turn 
again to the title page and look him in the 
eye. 

To enjoy the sweet perfume of a flower 
one may simply catch a whiff of its breath 
in passing; again one must be close, kiss 
it as it were. Love it. 

The grown-ups among the plants, the 
stems and leaves after the flowers have 
passed, hoard within their outer guard or 
envelope the sweetness you covet. They 
do not breathe it upon you, thrusting their 
virtues on the stranger, but crush them, 
and behold, their fragrance comes forth to 
greet you, unsparing and satisfying. Break 
a stem of lavender or sweet m~ry and the 
sweetness of a faded life entrances you. 

A human life may be crushed and 
broken for its own sake. The hidden and 
hoarded sweetness which, imprisoned, was 

93 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

denied to another, escapes to satisfy and 
revive the stranger. 

I wonder if the limbs of the tree above 
me need exercise, and the foliage, which is 
constantly moving in the wind. The trunk 
seems] to sit still like an old person. 
Looking up and out upon the trees, I 
fancy the leaves are impatient to be gone, 
and the slender twigs long to let go of the 
mother's apron strings. 

Wish you had a pillow — of the sort you 
used to nestle your head into at home 
when a child, tucking it well up around 
your ears with a good-night punch so you 
mightn't hear the call to "get up" in the 
morning? 

Pillows have played an important part 
in the history of all time. When Samson 
accepted the lap of Delilah for a pillow 
he lost everything he had in the world, 
which "everything' was his strength. 
Samson wasn't worth a cent when his 
strength was all gone over to the enemy. 



a 



And there was Sisera, who was quite 
off his base" when he saw a pretty 
woman. Knowing his weakness, as any 

94 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

man knows his own weakness, Sisera 
should have taken a country road instead 
of a walk in the city. He literally "lost 
his head" to Jael, all because he accepted 
her invitation to sleep upon the softest 
pillows the house afforded. Jael was mer- 
ciful to Sisera in that she deprived him of 
life, and so little reason as he was sup- 
posed to have had. 

Not every soft pillow is a good one, nor 
every hard pillow a bad one. A traveler 
may pray for a pillow and be given a rock, 
not knowing what may come of it. 

Here is a story which I believe to be 
perfectly true. There isn't a feature of it 
to be challenged. We know that men do 
get lost on the desert, and that rocks are 
mailed sentinels of the desert, and that 
some men are in the habit of dreaming 
and of telling their dreams to the family. 
Some people have nightmare. But the 
dream of the story is no nightmare. God 
does not send nightmares to frighten faith- 
ful travelers and loyal soldiers. If a man 
gets a nightmare he deserves it, and no 
mistake. 

95 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

A certain young man of the long ago 
grew too tired to go another mile. It was 
almost dark and he had to sleep exactly 
where he was. He did so wish he had a 
pillow — nothing but sand and stones in 
sight. A tired man is in his right mind 
when he wishes for a good thing, provided 
he looks around to find the object of his 
wish! One must hunt for the thing he 
wishes. Only in fairy stories may a person 
stand still and have his wish come true. 

It is not told in the story if the man 
was homesick or heartsick or just "tired to 
death," with blistered heels and cracked 
lips. But it is written of him that he 
longed for a pillow. The looking around 
for something helped him out of his diffi- 
culty, and though the pillow he discovered 
was as hard as a rock, it helped him to 
the best night's rest ever, with a dream 
thrown in. 

It is just like God to surprise a man 
with a dream. Nothing in sight but hard 
times, like so many desert stones, unsym- 
pathetic, barren of comradeship, cold and 
unpromising. Nothing in sight save white 
rocks, in shape and size not unlike the 

96 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B ag 

pillow he so much coveted. He lifted one 
of the rocks into place and went to sleep. 
No thought had he of dreaming; he just 
wanted to sleep for tomorrow's march. 

One may be something of a dreamer 
without being absent-minded. A dreamer 
may enjoy his visions while another man 
is grumbling about the might-have-beens 
and the probable may-bes. It is said that 
the brain goes on its usual course during 
sleep. We would better have a care about 
the route the brain is going on when 
awake. 

The sun looked into the face of the 
young man in the morning, with a merry 
twinkling light, as if it said, "How do you 
like rocks for a pillow, young man?" 

The young man had no time to pay 
attention to his cramped neck or the sore 
muscles of his shoulders. He had dreamed 
a dream; all on account of going to sleep 
on a rocky pillow without grumbling, nor 
even swearing. The name of God was on 
his lips, but not in profanity. How was it 
possible for a man to swear about his pil- 
low when he had that vision in his heart? 

97 



Thoughts fo r the Kit - B a g 

For want of a vision some men do swear, 
so it is said. 

If a man hasn't had any vision of his 
own, it would be a good thing to borrow 
one from this traveler. Second-hand vi- 
sions come in handy when a man is so 
dreadfully poor in his soul that he cannot 
even think a good thought for his hungry 
heart's breakfast. 

All on account of that dream he had in 
the night the young man arose and set the 
stones, upon which his weary head had 
laid, all up nice in a simple little pile, or 
cache as it were, in and among which he 
hid a prayer for the use of young men of 
all ages whose pillows or resting-places are 
particularly hard. And God has seen to 
it that the prayer has been preserved with- 
out must or stain or mildew. 

No munitions of the enemy have scat- 
tered that little cache of rocks, and no 
storm has blotted out the record of that 
vision and its accompanying prayer. 

Occupation is glorious; to be unoccu- 
pied is to be miserably debilitated. Em- 
ployment is the antidote for the slow 

98 



Thoughts fo r the K i t - B a g 

poison of despair or the deadly bite of 
resentment. 

Our dreamer of the hard pillow, of 
whom I was thinking yesterday, came to 
a point in his dream when he needed 
timber to make it work out right. He 
had the timber within him wherewith to 
supplement the rocks, the rocks being 
simply a foundation for an upward slant 
of glory, or to glory. With such timber, 
which was within him before the dream, 
did Jacob in his dream construct a ladder. 

But what about the sanity of the man? 
Can a ladder stand by itself, even on a 
rock foundation, with no visible provision 
for its upper end to lean against? 

If a man do his duty by the hard things, 
setting up his thoroughfare skyward, God 
Himself or His angels will attend to the 
upper end of the ladder. 

And when the daybreak chased away the 
shadows, revealing the cold monotony of 
desert and rocks, Jacob hugged his dream 
to his heart and vowed a great vow, some- 
thing about doing right all the rest of his 
life, to get even with the blessed dream. 

99 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

He was so gloriously full of his vision that 
he pledged all sorts of beautiful promises. 
And the echo of that prayer on the lonely 
desert has somehow come rolling down the 
ages. 

Let no man be afraid of hard things. 
Hard things make a good foundation upon 
which to rest earth's end of the ladder 
skyward. Let no man fear there will be 
no vision. No need is there of further 
visions when one has before one's eyes the 
vision of Jesus Christ. "Set up on the 
earth" once, no man blasphemer can tear 
Him down, for the ultimate, the final, the 
shining Way "reaches unto heaven," im- 
perishable, eternal. 

It is a good thing to be the dreamer of 
dreams that are worth while. We may 
not see the angels of God ascending and 
descending, but there are little visions in 
the night very comforting and refreshing 
when one sees nothing but rocks ahead 
and behind him. 

It is not good that life be too serene. 
Better to do battle with the waves on a 

ioo 



Thoughts for the Kit-Bag 

rocky coast than to drift aimlessly on a 
tideless lagoon. 

Wit is the gift of God. If you haven't 
any wit, get it by hook or crook and pray 
for it with all your might. It will serve as 
reserve forces behind the lines. Wit is the 
athlete ot the soul. Without wit a man 
becomes anemic in his soul. 

Thoughts that come to us, if worthy 
ones, are like fagots saved up to light the 
evening fires of life. If a "bum" thought 
knocks at your door, pack it off like the 
hoodlum that it is, or give it a stab with 
the Sword which the Y M C A brother will 
explain is in the hand of every man's soul. 

God is with the lonely man. God is 
able to glorify hard things and hard times 
into pedestals for heavenly thoroughfares 
to begin with. 

By hard things in the way God is able 
to extort from a man such vows as do not 
appear in dreams, and then so to fill the 
man with His own strength that lovingly, 
faithfully, that man will keep all of his 
promises made in an ecstasy of joy. God's 

IOI 



Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

promises invite man's promises. Man loves 
nothing better than a promise from a per- 
son who is able to keep his word. God 
loves nothing better than a promise from 
those He is spending all His long eternity 
to serve and save. 

"A God like a super-bishop in an apron 
and nice top hat — O God, you are God 
of Battles; forbid that we come to that. 
God, you are God of Soldiers, merry and 
rough and kind. Give to your sons an 
earth and a heaven more to their mind, 
meat and drink for the body, laughter and 
song for the soul, and fighting, and clean 
quick death to end and complete the 
whole." 

Occupation nourishes the waning vi- 
tality of submission. Thank God for 
work. 

Blossoms are the children of the plants. 
Their sweetness is absolute joy and beauty. 
The lover of children and flowers owns an 
inexhaustible mine of satisfaction, happi- 
ness even. 

But any mine must be "worked" to be 

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Thoughts for the Kit -Bag 

profitable. One must study the plants if 
these be one's mine, discover their possi- 
bilities and the source of their life. 

It is now fourteen weeks, and health is 
fast coming. Autumn tints are weaving 
themselves into the trees and fields, but 
my California thrasher bird continues to 
sing. He will sing on and yet more con- 
tinuously until Merry Christmas and 
Happy New Year bid you, my soldier 
friend, and me, to be about the business 
of a new life. 

May thoughts of mine, conveyed to you 
in this strange way, bring peace or har- 
mony or patience to you like a psalm. 
Red-lipped and red of cheek, Friendship 
and Unity of Purpose take long breaths, 
and skip the things that hurt — or better, 
glorify the hurt we sometimes suffer, with 
a balm that outwits pain. 

My spirit laughs with glee that I am 
yet alive, in spite of pain impossible for 
tongue to give recital of. Scars are but 
memories of the flesh. Let scars, your 
scars or mine, be recollections visible of 
triumph over pain. 

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Thoughts for the Kit- Bag 

May flowers of hope and strength and 
faith bestrew your march to Somewhere — 
God knows where, God knows. 

And we somewhere, some day as well as 
now, will join glad hands with all who 
hope and wait, and bide our time to con- 
quer all things hostile to the better life. 

Never say die, my boy, if your gallant 
ship goes down; 
Cling to your friendly spar. 
As you march through the desert, hot and 
brown, 
Keep your eye on one white star. 
With grit in your soul and fire in your 

eye, 
Crank up your courage and never say die. 

Never say die, my boy, when the firing 
line grows thin, 
And you fall with the rest, 
But hark to the beat, through the battle 
din, 
Of the heart in your breast. 
Desert not your body, the Soul's best 

ally, 
Stay with it, stay with it, and never say 
die. 

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Thought s for the Kit-Bag 

Never say die, my boy, when the hurt of 

the wound halts the breath. 
Ward off the weakness of Fear 
With the bayonet charge of Faith; and 

Death 
' Shall not ever strike you here. 
Bite your lip, while the aim of the foe 

you defy, 
Cling to the flag of your courage and 

never say die. 




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